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What do pharmaceuticals, 3-D printing, and a Boeing jetliner have in common? Sturtevant.

Sturtevant is a 132-year-old, family-owned company in Hanover, Massachusetts, that makes the particles that power these amazing products and industries.

Thomas L. Sturtevant built his first mill in Maine in 1883. A century later, Sturtevant, Inc. is still family-owned and making mills. Its products are so in demand that, before coming to Salesforce, its biggest problem was one most companies would envy: having more sales leads than it could handle.

“We’d get emails asking for pricing on our most popular product and we’d think, no, we’ve got too many inquiries, we can’t answer this,” said Sam Rajkovich, director of sales and marketing. Too little internal capacity meant only prospects who sent a second email would get a reply, but that was no way to qualify a lead. Rajkovich had experience with CRM solutions and knew implementing the right one could help.

Sales Cloud gave Sturtevant the ability to follow up on all of those leads. Over time the company added Service Cloud, Community Cloud, and more Salesforce solutions. The old system of six unconnected databases couldn’t keep track of a contact’s email address and generally yielded bad data. With Data.com, a centralized hub flows the right information between headquarters in Massachusetts and reps all over the globe. What used to take two months to communicate now happens the instant an employee launches the Salesforce1 Mobile App on the go.

A century of innovation

In 1921, Thomas Sturtevant invented the Mechanical Den and Excavator to keep workers safe while manufacturing fertilizer. Nearly a century later, Sturtevant makes machines with names like Powderizer and Micronizer that create perfect nanoparticles — some an astounding 12 times smaller than a red blood cell. These particles do magical things like creating crisp lettering on e-readers and making medicine work better. A continued focus on creating safer materials protects workers and helps prevent disasters at processing plants spanning industries and continents.

“We work with the major mining companies of the world and then we work on cutting-edge research materials for everything from pharmaceuticals to biotech and 3-D printing,” explained Rajkovich. “That second segment covers a lot of industries, so we call it ‘high-performance materials.’”

Those high-performance materials are in high demand by a customer base full of Fortune 100 companies. But the fifth generation of family ownership relies on a back-to-basics approach to stay focused on running a solid business.

“In the age of technology, we have to remember the fundamentals of business and not get sidetracked by pretty charts and infinite reporting,” Rajkovich said. “What’s really important to us is the core of Salesforce itself — the focus on our pipeline, our revenue, and what’s on the horizon.”

Sturtevant uses the Customer Success Platform to automate marketing, stay in contact with 200 reps around the world, and make two-year sales cycles flow like top-of-mind conversations. But its processes used to be manual, and that led to too many missed opportunities.

Mining new markets

For 132 years, Sturtevant didn’t have any outbound marketing. The company estimates it had sent one or maybe two marketing emails out each year, total. Since 1883. Then, Sturtevant got Pardot to help the company stay on top of marketing costs and ROI. Within three months, Sturtevant was running its first campaigns — and seeing results. “With Pardot, we cut the cost of new leads from $1,200 to $200,” said Marketing Analyst Lauren O’Brien. That was an 85% savings right off the bat.

With the world’s leading consumers of materials science as its customers, Sturtevant’s business depends on the fortunes of its clients, many of whom are mining new and emerging industries, such as 3-D printing. “I need to stay ahead of industry trends and who’s investing in what, and business development is very important for me,” said Rajkovich. “Sales might be great for me right now, but it’s the funnel that keeps me up at night.”

Sales Cloud reporting gives visibility into which leads might be stuck and in need of a nudge. The Customer Success Platform gives Rajkovich and Sturtevant real-time insights into the fundamentals of their business, and whatever materials they might be milling next. “I tried all of the other CRM solutions, and Salesforce is the only one that makes me money,” he summed it up. “That’s the bottom line.”